Having Fun While Encouraging Musical Growth

Making Music Makes a Nicer Kid: Study

This doesn’t have to do with the current series of taking our strength and struggles and creating more time for music in our children’s lives, per se, but it shows a really good reason why we should try to do so!

The Daily News posted this article in 2013 and I thought it was very interesting.

Making music can make a young child nicer, more willing to help, and better at problem solving, a new study finds.

Researchers from the University of West London said that they built on existing 2010 research from German researchers Sebastian Kirschner and Michael Tomasello, who found that making music can significantly improve positive social behavior in young children – meaning, they’re more cooperative, agreeable, and willing to help others. But in this study, the team wanted to find out if music-making also had an effect on problem-solving skills, and if so, is there a difference between boys and girls.

Findings were presented this week at the British Psychological Society’s Cognitive Developmental Psychology Annual Conference in Reading, England.

The team recruited nearly 50 four-year-old girls and boys. Kids were randomly assigned to either a “music” group…